Marathon

Before becoming enormous bitches to Microsoft and before creating the No.1 selling game among 13 year old aspies known as Halo, Bungie created this, what some have said to be a blatant Doom ripoff for the Mac, and eventually the Windows version, called Marathon. This was the 2nd game ever made for Mac (the first being BOLO), but got buried underneath all that Doom bullshit, so no one cared. The main problem with this Doom clone was that they used aliens instead of zombies and tried to include things such as a story and plot. In the world of gaming, any addition of something that makes the gamer have to think is an utter failure, seeing as people are only interested in seeing tits, Hell, dæmons, and hookers in their videogames. However, shocking as it is, some people actually played it!

The Final Boss: MEGACLIT

Marathon's Game Play

Marathon's game play is about as fun as trying to solve a calculus problem while using your dick to scrape away leprous vaginal crust from some scene chick in an abandoned YMCA bathroom, all while listening to the audiobook version of a novel by Alexander Dumas read by Andy Dick. In other words one half is meh, and the other half is total shit. I mean like shit the type of shit that makes pulling out each of your pubic hairs one by one seem enjoyable compared to dealing with this shit. FUCK!!! I just want to go to the next FUCKING level instead of dealing with this goddamn labyrinth where EVERYTHING FUCKING LOOKS THE SAME and all I have to do is find ONE DAMN SWITCH and get to a terminal so I can just FINISH THIS FUCKING LEVEL! But hey, chicks dig pubeless balls. Or maybe they don't. Either way you're still going to die a virgin for being enough of a geek to play this thing.

But as said above, it ain't all complete shit. The action bit of this game is fairly amusing. Your character runs like an black person Olympic gold-medalist on cocaine - however, this pretty much means that you'll be increasing the chances that you'll miss that one goddamn switch you need to finish the level. You also shoot stuff. With guns! Okay, wow, big fucking deal, right? But compared to the other games they had on the Mac, this shit seemed like fucking Jewgold at Christmas. I mean you can fucking dual wield your fists... ON A MAC! Imagine how many macfags came oceans when they found this out.

You spend pretty much the entire game going in circles for around a half-hour per level trying to find the exit. This is because, unlike other, better games of its time, Marathon tries more to frustrate you with puzzles, rather than provide you with entertainment. Levels are maze-like, and the fact that every wall has the same damn crappy texture doesn't help navigation at all. Yes, you do get to shoot aliens occasionally, but as you try and find the exit, you will end up running out of enemies to kill, with another 25 minutes left before you finally notice the floodgate switch texture you're supposed to press in order to escape the goddamn level. God DAMN, that is some FUN SHIT, mister!

Additionally, there are some levels that lack breathable air, which means you end up needing to backtrack to panels that refill your oxygen tanks. So if you're an idiot (which would explain why you're playing this game), and can't remember where the fuck you are/ are going/ are supposed to be, you are kinda fucked, dude...

Marathon offers a small variety of weapons to choose from.

The .44 Mega Class Magnum - The first piece of shit weapon you start out with. It takes an entire clip to drop one enemy, but if you dual wield, you can take down two enemies at a time!!1!.

The MA-75B Assault Rifle - One of the only weapons in the entire game that isn't complete shit. The rifle also has a secondary fire, which in 1994 was considered a greater leap in human culture than the wheel and the written word.

The Zeus Class Fusion Pistol - A pistol that shoots a lightning bolt, or a Care Bear Stare, or... something. You hold down the trigger to charge, and release the trigger to shoot.

TOZT-7 Backpack Napalm Unit - This gun pretty much pisses fire, beautiful pixels of fire.

Unknown alien weapon - It's basically a machine gun on roids. Like your sex stamina, this gun runs out of ammo in around 5 seconds.

WSTE-M Combat Shotgun - A small, overpowered shotgun.

The SPNKR X-17 SSM Rocket Launcher - As the name implies, this weapon does a good job of killing a large group of aliens... or bugs... or whatever the fuck you fight in this game.

Aleph One

Due to everything next-gen nowadays turning into the same generic crap that offers nothing more than lens flare, bloom, that layer of semen that makes everything shiny and Ragdoll Physics; gamers are actually turning to the past for something better. That combined with the fact that nostalgia is now trendy, some people made a free open source version of the Marathon trilogy.

External Links:

• Aleph One, for you nostalgic faggots.
• Marathon's story. Because you're too damn lazy to play through the game.

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